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China Becoming Intellectual Property Powerhouse

Posted by samzenpus on from the great-patent-wall dept.

eldavojohn writes "A lot of Westerners view China as little more than the world's factory manufacturing anything with little regard to patents, copyrights and trademarks. But it seems as far as patents go, China is moving on up. According to the WIPO, the company that applied for the most patents in 2008 was not an American or Japanese company but China's Huawei Technologies. And China has made astonishing ground recently moving up to third place with 203,257 patent applications behind Japan (500,000) and the United States (390,000). It remains to be seen if these patents applications will come to fruition for China but it is evident that they are focusing on a new image as a leader in research and development. The Korean article concentrates on 2008 but you can find 2009 statistics at the WIPO's report on China along with some statistics breaking down applications by industry."

7 of 140 comments (clear)

  1. I think we found step 2 by bersl2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    1. Disregard foreign patents
    2. Acquire patents for use against foreign firms
    3. PROFIT!

    1. Re:I think we found step 2 by antifoidulus · · Score: 2, Informative

      How is this different from any other aspect of Chinese economic policy? Ever listen to Hu Jintao rail against protectionism? Then ever look at Chinese economic policy to see that it is, by FAR, the most protectionist large economy on the planet? Thats pretty par for the course for China.

      See the thing about China is that they don't know when to quit. When they were a tiny economy they could get away with a lot of this bullshit but now they are acting like a big kid whose parents never disciplined him. Sure it's cute when he is 7, but now that he is 20 if he keeps this shit up he is going to get into a lot of trouble but he seems blissfully unaware of that fact......

      --
      Monstar L
  2. This has already happened by Infonaut · · Score: 5, Informative

    The first time around, it was the United States that started as a stealer of inventions from other countries, then over time became far more interested in protecting intellectual rights. When your own industry isn't generating the ideas, you figure anyone's ideas are fair game; when your industry is coming up with new ideas, you want to protect your position.

    --
    Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
  3. Re:Probably Stolen by Kagato · · Score: 2, Informative

    80 years? The US was stealing from Europe well before that. The UK had the death penalty for people caught stealing certain technology. However, there is a very big difference. The US didn't have a WIPO treaty back then that bound them to honer Intellectual Property. China does. They wanted all the benefits of WTO/WIPO, but doesn't want to actual honor their end of the deal.

  4. Re:Who didn't see this coming? by mattack2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You presumably mean they COULDN'T care less. Saying the exact opposite of what you mean is a bad way to (try to) communicate.

  5. Re:Probably Stolen by siddesu · · Score: 2, Informative

    For a good overview of how "intellectual property" became what it is today in the US, see, for example, this book:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)

    It will answer all your questions above, and more, and provide quite a lot of examples. It is also free.

    The 1930s were a miserable time to live in the US.

    How is that even related to the topic at hand, which is history of copyright and related rights?

    (Incidentally, US may have been bad, but the rest of the world had it a lot worse, and a large part of that was due to the myopic protectionist legislation US passed in the wake of the recession)

    I'm pretty sure the US has never had the chance to abuse international trade in much the ways China has.

    US has been directing more or less unilaterally most of the international trade for its own benefit since the end of WWII. I'm pretty sure the effects of China's trade policies don't quite measure up in comparison.

    Do you know what does, for example, the phrase "Nixon shock" refer to?

  6. Rampant Fraud in China by happyhamster · · Score: 3, Informative

    How many of those patents are legitimate, and not fraudulent of plagiarizing?

    "Rampant Fraud Threatens China's Brisk Ascent"
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/world/asia/07fraud.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all

    One of the points the article highlights is that in Chinese culture, blatant cheating and shameless plagiarism is fine. It's just being "smart" to get ahead. Nice culture to force your hard-working population to compete with.